Okay then. It's totally cool with me , I was actually thinking of the shoestring case AnnaT spoke of . ... It won't harm the gun , AK's are built for full auto and AR's can handle it as well , depending on your build. ..barrels do eventually wear out, but not many people ever shoot that much.

I don't bother , I am one of those "aimed fire" people. My m4clone cycles faaster than I can pull the trigger so I sometimes play with How-fast-can-I-shoot & stay-on-target , with steel plate shooting. Plenty lot of noise that way also.

You don't shoot much, do you? Service life for a non-chrome lined barrel is around 5K rounds. Its around 20K for a chrome lined barrel, but chrome lined barrels aren't as accurate. Most of the match shooters I shoot with rebarrel after 4K rounds. I put 7K rounds through my last barrel before swapping it out, and I was definately getting a lot of flyers after around 6K to 6.5K. Before my daugther was born, I was shooting over 3K rounds a year. A lot of the match shooters I shoot with shoot a lot more than that. FWIW, more goes into barrel wear than just the number or rounds fired. Shooting a lot of rapid fire puts more wear on the barrel because of the heat involved. Also, crappy cleaning technique will wear out a barrel, too.

I can't tell if that's bragging about how much money you have ( I am a lowly carpenter ) or if you're some kind of special scary guy like a tacti-ninjer. ...

"Shoot a lot "... lets count: Wolf MilClassic (probably the worst of cheap .223)$5 per20. I average around 100 rounds per weekend/$25 , or a hundred bucks a month in .223 ( granted , I actually hoarded a bunch before it got that high , but whatever ). So I guess I average about 12 -1500 per year. Half as much as you before you had a kid, and I also have a daughter.Guess you don't shoot a lot either.So I guess the barrel life for my AR oughta be around 15 years ...

Oh , but wait. I also go through another 100 or so .44 rem mags per week with my Win'84 carbine ( i reload them ) . And about 200 .45 acp ( I also reload them ) between shooting paper on Sundays and steel on Wednesdays. ...

Other guns mostly wait for something to go on sale for me to drag them along. .. But I am obsessing about a S&W model 29 to match the levergun and cut down on chasing brass ... and of course to make really loud .44 holes in paper. I took on a side job to finance that next gun.

I was simply rebutting your comment that not many people shoot enough to ever wear out a barrel. I've worn out barrels, and I don't shoot as much as most of the guys I shoot with. Rebarreling a rifle is a pretty common occurance and if someone is going to be doing a lot of bump firing, they are going to have to rebarrel more often than those that don't.

As for ammo and cost, thats and time constraints are why I don't shoot as much as I used to. Prior to the current unpleasentries overseas, surplus ammo was cheap and plentiful. About $150/1K rds. of .308 and about $200 for .30 cal. I stocked up prior to the surplus ammo supply drying up or getting really expensive, but am down to under 1K rds in .308, which is what I mostly shoot.

I'm saving up for reloading supplies, so that I can roll my own, but brass and bullets have also increased in price, so hand loaded won't be nearly as cheap as the surplus was. I think one of my shooting buddies said he spends about $0.38/rd for hand loaded .308 compared to the $0.15/rd for surplus that used to be available. Unfortunately, all of the surplus ammo I have is berdan primed, so is not readily reloadable, which means I'll have to buy a lot of brass. At least the .30 cal I have is all Lake City, so I'll be set with brass for the M1 for quite some time.

Even the non surplus shite grade like Wolf was selling for 3.25 a box in march , now $5 in June.

I haven't gone further than straight wall cartidge reloading , but I do have a few thou of Lake City brass .223 and 1 thou loaded ( saving them ). I've seen piles of it at one of the ranges I go to , but so far have been too proud to scavenge Other Peoples spent brass. .... but I am starting to rethink that ...

I don't know about scavenging other people's spent brass for reloading. You never know how many times it may have been reloaded. Of course, most people that reload probably are the type that are concientious enough not to leave their brass lying around. I'll clean up other people's brass at our range sometimes just to throw in my spent brass bag (old laundry bag0 with my berdan primed brass, which I take to the scrap yard once it starts to get about half full. Last recylcle run, they were paying $0.30/lb for spent brass. Doesn't turn a half full laundry bag of brass into a fortune, but it is enough for a nice lunch.